


Shopping

by TheOtherCourse (kanevixen)



Series: Tom and Abigail Series [30]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Crimson Peak (2015) RPF, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) RPF, The Hollow Crown RPF, Thor (Movies) RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom, Unrelated (2007) RPF, Wallander (UK TV) RPF
Genre: Body Image, Comfort, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Fluffy Tom, Lingerie, London, Self-Esteem Issues, Shopping, Supportive Tom, Victoria's Secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanevixen/pseuds/TheOtherCourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom takes his girlfriend shopping at Victoria’s Secret on Bond St., but they are both there with entirely different motives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shopping

“Baby, I’ve got to go to Boots and Waterstones.”

I looked up from my nest of blankets and pillows on my side of Tom’s couch as he strode into the room. I was trying to learn my lines, since rehearsals started next week, and I was attempting to get off book by the start of table reads. I had act one down, but act two was proving illusive for me to memorize.

I smiled distractedly at my boyfriend, “Did your order come in?”

“Yeah, yeah, it did. I won’t be long unless you fancy leaving that behind. You look shattered,” he pointed at the script in my hand. “How’s it going?”

“Do you think the human brain reaches the point of overload or consumption and cannot possibly handle another shred of information before it starts to wipe something vitally important?”

“That bad? What have you forgotten?”

“My name. Your name’s a little fuzzy,” I teased. I slammed my heavy black binder housing my script shut and threw it on the coffee table with a loud thud.

Tom leaned over the back of the couch to capture my lips in a heated kiss. When he pulled back, he queried, his eyes searching mine, “How’s that? My name returning? How’s that for igniting the memory?”

“It ignited something alright, but I’m pretty sure they don’t call it memory.” He chuckled before claiming my lips again, in a deeper display of affection. I urged when he pulled away again, “Keep doing that because it’s stirring something… maybe the recall function will get caught up in the stirring of the other bits…”

“Minx,” he said once more before laying another kiss on me and stroking his hand over my hair. “Time for a break for you, my love. Come with me.”

“Can we go to Bond Street?”

“Do you need to go to Bond Street?”

“Need is a relative term.”

“In Abby world?”

“And yours too, since you’re making me take a break,” I said as I hoisted myself up from the couch. I quickly stole away to the bedroom to change out of Tom’s t-shirt and into one of my own and a pair of well-worn jeans. I poked and prodded and shaped my hair up into a messy pony tail at the back of my head. In the hallway, I slipped on my black flats and grabbed my handbag.

“Babe,” I called to Tom who finished drinking a glass of water in the kitchen. “Bring plastic.”

“Where’s yours?” he asked with confusion, joining me in the foyer. “Did you lose it again?”

“No, just in case I max it… I’ll have yours to max too.”

Tom picked up his billfold and keys from the hall table and pocketed them in his trousers. “Cheeky, Abby! Very cheeky.”

He hustled me out the front door and locked it behind him. I giggled with him trying to turn the focus away from me. “It’s for your benefit that I’m going, you know.”

He laced his fingers with mine, walking towards his car in the late summer afternoon. The sun was making a valiant effort to keep the clouds and the autumn away, and still winning, but I could feel the first chill of autumn coming. “Oh? Where are you making me take you?”

“While you were away this summer, a Victoria’s Secret opened near Bond Street.”

Considering our history, I never thought he would be so excited about intimate apparel, certainly not shopping for it. So much our relationship had been physical, I didn’t think he had the willpower or patience for lingerie. Since being involved with Tom, I’d never spent so much time in my birthday suit, teddies and nighties seemed unnecessary and I never owned one before. My boyfriend wasn’t an exhibitionist or anything remotely like that; he preferred natural. He wore as little as possible around his flat and mine, unless company was expected to come calling. By extension, I adopted his habits purely for selfish reasons. Tom was always amorous when I was clad in less, or in his clothes. 

The thickly perfumed air of Victoria’s Secret was fierce upon entrance, although disappeared the deeper we stepped into the store. I like very feminine intimates, pretty, frilly, in flattering girly colors. I wasn’t incredibly picky that my bras and knickers matched, only that they were beautiful and functional. My knickers were always 100% cotton, and my bras were full coverage to give me the most support.

Before I let Tom pick out anything for me to try on, I grabbed some of my every day wear things and held them at the register, four bras in varying colors and ten new panties. I was impressed with his taste in teddies and lingerie when he picked things suitable for me and not the most revealing. He chose a black and pink babydoll mesh teddy, a purple chiffon romper, a black satin halter slip, and a modest white lace-trim slip. Garters and straps were not my style, and without asking, my Tom knew that, leaving them on display without so much as a second glance.

He was very affectionate with this step in our relationship, keeping his arm around my shoulders and kissing the top of my head. Escorting me towards the rear wall of the store where the changing rooms were, I carried the potential purchases, turned left into the last room and left Tom outside the door. With a hand on his chest, I urged him into the wall across from the door to lean against. “Stay here.”

The mischief that played over his eyebrows was intoxicating and incredibly sexy. His right brow shot up, the hints of playfulness making him appear younger. “You’re leaving me in Barbie’s foyer,” he said indicating the stunningly pink trim with iridescent pink striped wallpaper with irritatingly pink wall sconces.

With a quick sweep of my eyes around the hallway, I joked, “This puts even Barbie to shame. She’s upchucking pink with envy.”

He smirked, “I thought you liked pink.”

“I love pink, but this is not pink. This is obnoxious.” I kissed him sweetly and shoved him in the corner on the equally pink stool to wait. I quickly put the door of the dressing room between us to sample what he’d picked for me.

Over the chatter of the ladies in the other rooms, I heard my phone sound with an incoming iMessenger tone. Shedding the last of my clothes, through the door, I said, “Stop it!” My boyfriend’s snigger sounded through the thin plastic door, knowing full well that he was up to no good. I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket on the stool to see what filthy things he was sending to my phone while I was undressing.

‘I can’t stop thinking about you in lingerie. Let me in. – T xx’

Before slipping into one of his selections, I sent him a picture of the mirror’s reflection of my belly button to tease him. I silenced the camera and the messenger so he wouldn’t be alerted that I was playing his game. After I hit send, his phone sounded in the hallway, then I heard him exhale and shift in his seat uncomfortably. He said softly, “Flirt.”

Carefully I eased into the fragile mesh material of white lace covered slip to see how my pale skin looked against white material. I studied my reflection in the looking glass, taking in the way the lace hugged my breasts, skimmed my hips and flared along my thighs, ending abruptly mid-thigh. I never thought I was a stunner, cute maybe because of my size, but never beautiful. Tom called me beautiful from time to time, but that was his job as boyfriend; he’s biased in that way.

The ladies chattering in the neighboring stalls faded into the background and disappeared as they made their way to the registers to pay for their purchases. Other ladies took their stalls with the hopes of finding something that fit or something to go under their evening dress. I tuned it all out as I stared at my reflection in the mirror, fighting off that out of body experience that sometimes happens when trying on new clothes. That was me there, I knew it was, but I had no emotional connection to seeing myself. A nagging fear sliced through the playful mood of this new experience with Tom and I suddenly didn’t want to do it anymore.

I wanted to try to be objective for my boyfriend, try to see myself from his perspective, but I never understood what he liked about me as far as my features go. It shouldn’t matter, since we were together, in love, and he still desired me after nearly a year of sleeping together, but I didn’t quite grasp what he saw in me. He returned to me anxious to pick up where we left off after Jarmusch had absconded with him for shooting in foreign countries.

A small knock broke through my dissociative state, planting me firmly back into the land of pink. “Abby? You got quiet, love,” Tom’s voice was low and tentative, not wanting to disrupt or startle, keeping the conversation between me and him. “That’s very unlike you.”

Rotating away from the mirror, I cracked the door open just enough to see his face, hiding my costume behind the solid surface. I didn’t say anything, unsure what to say or how to feel, a true sense of apathy setting in. “Abby, sweetheart, what is it?” I shook my head blankly, adrift in my own thoughts, unable to describe my mind and where I was. “Hey, let me in, love.”

I stepped back, letting the door open further and Tom angled inside before closing the door behind him. The dressing room was big enough for the two of us but didn’t leave a lot of space for movement. Taking my face gently in his hands, he asked gravely, “What’s going on in Abby World? Why so quiet?”

I swiveled around again so I was facing the mirror with Tom directly behind me. “I don’t get it,” taking in my appearance again. Tom’s hands skimmed along my torso in an almost absent manner slowly, maintaining our attachment by touch. “I don’t think of myself as sexy or deserving of something like this. I just don’t get it.”

He pulled me flush against him, sustaining our tactile connection, a move to reassure me. He met my gaze in the reflection evenly and spoke low in my ear, “Then you don’t see what I see. You are a beautiful woman with all her curves in the right places. Your big expressive blue eyes that can hold equal parts teasing and innocence, great pain and naiveté all at the same time, so wise, yet so young. That’s such a turn-on. You deserve all the pretty and all the sexy, because that’s exactly what you are to me, my Abby.”

“I don’t see me as you see me, babe. I feel kind of silly.”

“You’re gorgeous, you’re mine, and I’m blessed for it. This, the lingerie, is only ornamental, adornment, meant to accentuate what is already there. And what you have already there is delicious, delectable and amazing. If you don’t like it, don’t wear it. I will take you no matter how you come, wrapped or unwrapped.”

I sighed letting my gaze slide from his to the lace covering all my delicates. “But you were so excited about adding this,” I pulled awkwardly at the gauzy material. “I don’t want to let you down.”

Wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin upon my shoulder, he assured me, “You could never disappoint me because of a choice that you make based on what you want or feel most comfortable with. You are sexy with or without the slip.”

“So this isn’t about covering me up?”

“I picked out a mesh one, you know, you’re wearing the most modest choice, love. Are you afraid that I don’t find you sexy enough, that I somehow need you to dress up to find you attractive?”

I blushed deeply, still avoiding his eyes by staring at my toes curling into the hardwood floor, searching for a hold on my emotions there. I refrained from saying anything because I was suffering from all sorts of conflicting emotions about the entire shopping experience. “I don’t need this to find you irresistible, you already are. I don’t have sex with you for purely selfish reasons. It’s not the sex part that excites me, it’s sharing something with you.  _With you_ , Abby. To me, making love with you is like a musical. The emotions become so strong, so intense, that mere words couldn’t possibly describe what I’m feeling. In musicals, the dialogue becomes song with lyrics, melodies, and dancing because words don’t hold as much weight as all of that.

“Making love with you is the same for me, I’m overcome with emotion - I don’t know any other way to express how I feel for you other than sharing pleasure, a deeper connection. When we are physical, we are vulnerable, defenseless, completely unguarded, with no shields between us. We have no inhibitions and we communicate on another level. I love being with you, around you, in you… all of it, because it’s you and me, together and open.

“I was excited about lingerie with you, because you don’t have any. It was the prospect of a new experience, something new with you, baby. Something you hadn’t experienced with someone else, you seemed to want to share it with me too. I know how you like to feel pretty and feminine without flaunting it, you keep it away from everyone. If you’ve changed your mind, that’s fine. Let’s take this off and we’ll find something else new to do together, ride the tube for no reason, try a different flavor coffee at Starbucks, go poke and prod a Horse guard at Buckingham Palace to see if we can get him to laugh, pretend to be tourist in our hometown, ride a red double-decker bus or go smoke a couple of cigars. Anything new with you is exciting and attractive to me. It wasn’t so much about the lingerie…”

I turned back around in his arms again and pulled him into a fevered kiss. He knew all the correct words to say to show me that I was being responsive to the wrong things, and focusing on the incorrect aspect. Ending the kiss, I whispered seductively, “I’ve never been fucked in a Victoria’s Secret dressing room before.”


End file.
